Return of the God of War - Chapter 78

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 78. We Have a Plan.
Meanwhile.
Yeomujil’s gaze had been fixed on a single point from beginning to end.
It was neither Muk Yeojin nor Yang Hui, nor his sister.
There was only one person his eyes could hold.
Cheon Hwarin.
Though the alias Sonachwol had spread widely of late.
Few yet knew the precise appearance beneath Muk Yeojin’s disguise.
So none in this place had seen through him.
But.
Cheon Hwarin was different.
An object of longing to some, an object of terror to others.
The Young Cult Master of Cheonma Singyro.
Demon Blossom, Cheon Hwarin.
So well-known was her face that any martial artist ignorant of it could be counted on one’s fingers.
Yeomujil stared at her, his eyes bright with blood.
‘However my sister managed to draw the young cult master into this, I care not.’
Such details were utterly beneath him.
For to him, Cheon Hwarin was a long-cherished desire—a dream pursued for years.
The corners of his mouth twisted upward like some beast’s.
“Khe-khe-khe…… Today. At last! Today!”
Grotesque laughter spilled from Yeomujil’s lips in waves.
“The day has finally come to split open the belly of one born with the Heavenly Warrior Physique. The heart, the five organs and six viscera, what secrets lie even within that skull? Khe-khe.”
His eyes gleamed with madness, his voice trembling with genuine excitement.
“Hear me, Patriarch. You may slaughter every last man here—but that woman must be brought to me alive.”
The Patriarch of Baek Youeuiga, who stood nearby and was Muk Geon’s grandfather.
Baek Youbae stepped forward quietly.
Though he had passed seventy winters, his appearance was that of a man in his mid-forties.
His face bore not a single blemish, yet his eyes held not righteous light but something sinister and strange.
He brought his hands together neatly, bowed his head deeply, and showed proper respect to Yeomujil.
“I shall obey your command, Death Blade.”
Then he hesitated briefly before adding carefully:
“But…… what should we do with the younger sister?”
Yeomujil turned his head.
His gaze swept past Yeocheon like wind.
“Hmm……”
After regarding her a moment, Yeomujil waved his hand dismissively as though brushing away an annoying insect, and turned away.
“Boiled or grilled, do as you please, Patriarch.”
In other words, he cared nothing for what became of her.
In that instant, Baek Youbae’s eyes swam with desire.
He drew his tongue across his lips.
‘A woman harboring martial power can yield hundreds of times more Yin Qi than ordinary women, they say? This is a windfall indeed.’
Baek Youbae.
From childhood, he had wished to become a martial master.
But Heaven had denied him martial talent.
So what he chose instead was Yin Absorption Cultivation.
He had purchased the Demonic Yin Absorption Technique of the previous generation’s great demon—known as the Lustful Demon—at great expense from black-market dealers.
Feeling his Demonic Qi churning from a distance, Muk Yeojin shook his head.
“A Patriarch of the Baek Youeuiga claiming the lineage of the lustful demon—it’s laughable.”
Yang Hui too regarded them with contempt-filled eyes.
“And he tosses his own blood to such a creature. The man has lost his mind.”
Boom!
Qi erupted beneath Cheon Hwarin’s feet like an explosion.
The Blood Heaven Strike, now at its apex, kindled and blazed where it met the Great Stone Axe.
Her fury had already reached its peak.
Yang Hui surveyed the battlefield, breathing quietly and evenly.
“Most are rabble…… but scattered among them are a few truly dangerous men—Gwoerang, Pa Singun, Dokgak Nosa.
All were marked as public enemies of the Murim Alliance.
This place was less an organization than a direct reflection of Evil Valley itself.
Muk Yeojin nodded and spoke to Cheon Hwarin.
“We have a plan.”
Cheon Hwarin turned her head.
“A plan?”
“Yes. I’ll take the right flank, and you take the left, Sect Leader. We’ll sweep them all away.”
Cheon Hwarin and Muk Yeojin.
Both were savage beasts.
Fighting side by side would only hinder each other.
So.
Fight scattered, was what he meant.
Divide and Defeat. Fending for Oneself.
This was a battle method steeped in quite ancient history.
Not some military strategy passed down through generations, but the history of Muk Yeojin and Cheon Hwarin themselves.
Fighting this way, the two had created countless legendary battles worthy of remaining in the martial records before the return.
Cheon Hwarin laughed softly.
It was amusing to call something so simple a “plan,” yet on the other hand, it was a plan she couldn’t have approved of more.
“……Don’t die.”
Cheon Hwarin left only those words and hurled herself straight into the heart of the enemy ranks.
Muk Yeojin smiled faintly as well.
He drew up his Cangqiong Qi and unfurled a blade aura.
“Yang Hui. You protect Yeocheon.”
Muk Yeojin too left only those words and threw himself into the battlefield without hesitation.
Boom!
Two figures split apart in opposite directions, slashing through the battlefield as if dividing it in two.
And left behind in that place were Yeocheon and Yang Hui.
For a moment, the two stood dazed, watching the backs of the two who’d rushed forward disappear into the fray.
Suddenly, a strange silence fell.
An awkward moment utterly out of place in this chaos.
Yeocheon struggled to speak first.
“Well…… um…… pleased to meet you. Shadow Blade…… or should I say, Thief?”
Yang Hui chuckled a beat later, quietly.
“……Just call me Yang Hui, if you would.”
* * *
“This—this cursed thing!”
Crash!
With a thunderous explosion, a storm of Qi descended.
What had been human moments before, as if torn limb from limb, scattered in all directions as fragments of flesh.
Whoosh!
Bang!
Crash!
Her speed was almost beyond belief.
The Death Blades that the Baek Youeuiga had so painstakingly cultivated were scattered like autumn leaves before her all-encompassing assault.
A massive white stone axe, carved from a thousand-year-old boulder.
The Great Stone Axe.
A woman of dazzling beauty wielded such a monstrous weapon.
Crash! Bang!
They say what appears comedic from afar is tragedy up close.
Beautiful.
If the legendary Western Shi, called the most beautiful woman of all time, were to be reborn, would she be like this?
Those who watched her form from a step away harbored such feelings.
But.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Aaahhhhh!”
For those who faced her axe blows at close range, it was nothing short of calamity.
No one could stand against her.
Boom! Crash!
A destructive footwork that shook the earth itself with supreme force.
A malevolent spirit sent from heaven.
The Heavenly Demon.
Her first step heralding her descent upon the world.
Rumble!
Heavenly Demon Dominion Step.
And alongside it, an overwhelming Axe Technique unfolds.
Before he could even attempt anything, his body was crushed to pulp.
Pa Singun—the Blood Ghost of Zhejiang, as they called the demon head.
He was precisely the sort of retainer the Baek Youeuiga had taken on for moments like this.
Yet even he who could make weeping children fall silent didn’t last three exchanges before that axe split his body clean in half.
Baek Youbae cried out.
“Scatter! You witless dogs! Spread out and strike from all sides, I said!”
But.
A thunderous crash echoed across the field.
“What—what is this!”
The battlefield where Cheon Hwarin wreaked havoc.
From the opposite direction came another deafening roar.
Baek Youbae’s head snapped around, eyes wide.
Assassins.
Hunting dogs of the Baek Youeuiga, honed and hardened in both body and spirit over years of discipline.
The assassins knew no fear of death.
Ask them to carry kindling into flames and they would leap without hesitation.
Not born to it—Baek Youbae had made them that way.
He had erased the thing called emotion.
Yet in this moment.
Emotion bloomed clearly in those assassins’ eyes.
It was unmistakable terror.
“Aaahhh!”
“Save me! Ahhh!”
“R-run!”
A piercing shriek tore through the air.
“What in the name of—!”
Baek Youbae’s eyes shot open.
He saw it.
There—a swordsman in black slaughtering his subordinates.
He did not kill quickly.
Though he could have severed the throat easily, he lopped off limbs first, then drove his blade into the blood vessels, leaving them to wait in agony.
From all directions came the wailing of half-corpses, limbless and dying, their screams piercing the night.
For Baek Youbae, who had gorged himself on the Yin Qi of countless women before slaughtering them, the sight was beyond sickening.
It deserved no name gentler than Killing Ghost.
“Where in all the heavens does a monster like that crawl from!”
A bone-chilling crack rang out.
Seizing the opponent’s skull with inhuman strength as if to tear away the face itself, he dragged the body forward with casual brutality.
Even amid this, Muk Yeojin’s icy aura, utterly devoid of emotion, made the assassins falter.
“If you wish to live, clear the path. I have no business with the likes of you.”
Then it came.
A shriek split the air.
Blood sprayed.
A killing intent suddenly blazed from his left; he twisted his torso by instinct, but the blade still grazed his skin.
It was Dokgak Nosa’s ambush from amid the corpses.
“Got you! Kehehe! You young pup with blood still wet behind your ears—do you know what poison coats this Poison Fang? A single drop fells an elephant the size of a mansion—the Five Poison Demise Elixir!”
Dokgak Nosa shrieked in triumphant ecstasy.
“I’ll grind this dog’s corpse to dust and bury it in the outhouse! Kahahaha!”
But his complexion drained of color in no time at all.
Time enough had passed that blood should have poured from all seven orifices, should have been death.
Yet the young swordsman stood unblemished, still gazing down at him with that arrogant eyes.
“How… why?”
A humming vibration pierced the silence.
“Good question.”
The Yeonhwa Wheel wrapped around Muk Yeojin’s wrist thrummed, draining the venom of the Five Poison Demise Elixir.
A cold smile played across his lips.
“Perhaps because the concentration of the Poison Heart I harbor runs far deeper than any mere toxin?”
“That’s… that’s impossible…”
A sickening sound followed.
Those were Dokgak Nosa’s final words.
Baek Youbae’s insides burned hotter with each passing moment.
Merely three of them.
But what of his own forces?
Three hundred assassins, cultivated at tremendous expense.
Beyond that, an abundance of martial masters painstakingly recruited from the Jianghu.
He had thought it would end as easily as crushing ants beneath his heel.
Yet what manner of situation was this?
Not even half a watch had elapsed since the battle began, and already a third of his assassins lay dead or crippled, with more than half the masters among the fallen.
His body, hot with anticipation at the thought of claiming Yeocheon once the matter was settled, could only grow cold.
‘Damn it all!’
Baek Youbae pointed at Yeocheon with a trembling finger and shouted.
“Seize that woman first!”
It seemed those men were guarding her, so his plan was to capture her and use her as a hostage.
But.
Even that lay beyond his grasp.
First, the front line held fast by Muk Yeojin and Cheon Hwarin remained impenetrable.
Even should one or two men manage to break through, they would find waiting for them ahead a figure of extraordinary presence.
Screee! Screee!
Swish! Swish-swish!
Yang Hui, wielding the Short Sword Technique at a speed that seemed almost supernatural.
“Ugh!”
Baek Youbae’s face flushed crimson with rage.
Then it came.
Screee!
Swish!
A crescent-shaped sword aura not only bisected the assassins before him but hurtled straight toward Baek Youbae.
Baek Youbae’s eyes flashed with alarm.
“How dare you!”
Whoosh.
He gathered the force of Ice Palm in both hands and hurled it toward the oncoming blade energy.
Boom!
Horror bloomed in Baek Youbae’s eyes.
The sword aura had been drawn from ten zhang away or more.
Despite losing force as it carved through the assassins in between, it still carried power enough to make his palms tingle.
Baek Youbae stared at the young man who had unleashed it, his eyes wavering.
A god of slaughter, his entire body soaked in the blood of assassins, walked steadily forward.
The chill in Muk Yeojin’s voice rang out, cold enough to raise every hair on the skin.
“You would do well to abandon any hope of walking away unscathed.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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